• Employees have the right to access and review certain personnel file records and many states provide greater rights.

Employees have the right to access occupational exposure records under the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act.

Many states have laws that provide employees with a right to access and review their personnel files. The laws and their provisions vary from state to state, so human resources (HR) professionals need to be aware of the provisions in applicable states.

Typically, these laws allow that an HR representative or a supervisor be present when an employee accesses a personnel file. This is to be sure the integrity of the file and its contents remain intact. If the employee disagrees with something contained in the file, the employee is free to lodge a complaint, which should also be filed.

Some state laws allow employees to obtain copies of the documents in personnel files. If this is the case, an employer may want to be the one to make the copy and provide it to the employee. Some information sharing may violate privacy laws, so an employer may not want to include documents such as references or those relating to criminal investigations in the file.